3nanashi | (no subject)

(no subject)

Trowa likes the garage. It's quiet, it's usually pretty empty of people, and it's got square kilometers full of fascinating machinery. Trowa is a mechanic at heart, and sometimes he privately misses the chance to get shoulder-deep in an engine. Milliways provides for that handily.

He's also Trowa, which means he also likes to explore it to make sure he has a clear and current mental map of all those square kilometers of deceptive and occasionally shifting geometry.

He rounds a corner, and --

. . .

That's new.

Trowa's eyes narrow slightly as he regards the wall. Its utilitarian concrete is covered with scratches and scrawled over with white chalk, delineating X-ed out circles and a single word:

S O L D I E R

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Ava's going to run out of space soon, one way or another: it's tricky navigating between the parking spaces, and the larger vehicles give way too quickly to cars and bikes too short to hide behind.

The light nearest Trowa flickers, giving an unsteady buzz.

It's gone a bit chillier down here all of a sudden.

It's Milliways. It probably isn't a wiring issue.

Someone wants him to freeze. To halt uncertainly for a moment, scared or wary or spooked, and give them a chance to do -- something.

Trowa doesn't make a habit of doing what people want him to.

So instead, Trowa pushes off instantly into a high, twisting flip meant to carry him a landing crouch on the trunk of a nearby monster truck. (And meant also to give him a good look around.)

It's probably a good thing he moved right then.

As he arcs through the air, the light that was right above him shatters, spraying glass to the floor and dimming the immediate area.

Ava herself executes no acrobatics whatsoever. But she does glance up sharply as he lands.

Well then.

Trowa holds his position for the moment, the truck's cab between them, and regards Ava over it.

Ava is looking back at him, expression intent but tough to read.

"Hi, Trowa."

"Hi."

Blandly.

Beat.

"Having fun?"

It might even be a genuine question!

(S O L D I E R)

"Always do."

She doesn't move yet.

She's . . . looked better.

Trowa lets his face relax infinitesimally, in the Trowa equivalent of I'm-listening eyebrows, and waits.

"What are you doing here?"

Having lights shattered at him, apparently!

Trowa would, another day, say Taking a walk.

"Reconnaissance."

They're synonyms!

She blinks.

The lights flicker.

"Find anything?"

"Somebody's been redecorating."

Ava looks at him in incomprehension.

And without letting him slip out of view, she starts picking her way slowly towards the center aisle, where bits of glass lie scattered.

She doesn't like it right here. She feels hemmed in.

Hmm.

Trowa follows her with his eyes, and with most (but not all) of his attention, and doesn't otherwise move.

Apparently he feels a monster truck makes a good vantage point.

"How about you?"

Ava's sneakers hit the outermost glass shards with a dainty crrrunch.

Absent, her voice low, "Not really."

(The demon is present but not physically here. It can smash lights and make it cold and send shivers down your spine, but it can't take a shape-- or anyone else's.

Ava finds it comforting, clawing at the doors in her mind.

Doors are made of wood, and wood comes from trees ...)

. . .

Uh huh.

Trowa's patient. (Categorically.) He watches in silence: Ava's distracted drifting motion, the glinting of the room's other lights off the shattered glass. Very localized devastation, as Trowa's standards go.

She can see the chalk writing from here. He's curious whether she will.

She spends a moment glancing down at the glass, then up at the light. Back to Trowa.

A quick look around at the parts of the garage that she's neglected to pay attention to, which she slows down by force of will.

(Take it easy.)

It's only at the end of this that she spots the writing.

Ava steps towards the wall, her awareness of Trowa a prickle tickling above her awareness of the demon, which is more of a friendly stab.

Crunch. Crunch crrrunch.

Here's hoping her soles are sturdy. They look it, though.

"Pretty interesting," Trowa says lightly, watching Ava's progress.

Comparisons can be deceptive; parallels will mislead you if you try to follow them too far. Trowa's conservative to a fault about that. It's important to see the patterns that are really there.

But all the same, he's reminded briefly of Une, back in the day.

Ava stops.

She turns her head to look at Trowa.

The expression on her fact isn't much different than before, but there's a flicker of something in it-- fear, maybe anger.

But it's distant.

Patient, even.

"That's not funny."

Mildly, "Never said it was."

Things Trowa does not have in his possession right now: chalk.

Her eyes narrow slightly.

Trowa's don't.

Without shifting, and without looking any less suspicious, she says, "Did you follow me?"

Her voice sounds slightly hoarse, as if she's getting a cold.

"No."

He's capable. And he's capable of lying about it.

But he's telling the truth, at the moment.

"I was just taking a walk."

He'd ask if she followed him, in turn, but he's pretty sure he'd've noticed. And the writing was already there.

"Kind of a weird coincidence."

Mild.

"Seeing that up on the walls ... running into you."